Scientists have catalogued more than 5,000 tumor DNA profiles in a database of genetic abnormalities in cancer, a resource aimed at tailoring highly specific drugs to the particular genetic mutations and other abnormalities that drive a patient's cancer.

The Joint Center for Cancer Precision Medicine, a collaborative initiative among Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston Children’s Hospital, and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, has been established to create “precision medicine treatment pathways” for patients with advanced cancers and to speed the development of personalized therapies.

A gene whose existence was detected only a couple of years ago may
increase women's risk of breast cancer when inherited in a mutated form,
and may contribute to prostate cancer as well, researchers at
Dana-Farber and colleagues in Finland report in a new study.

Dana-Farber/Boston Children's researchers reported promising outcomes data for the first group of boys with X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency syndrome (SCID-X1), a fatal genetic immunodeficiency also known as "bubble boy" disease, who were treated in an international clinical study of a new form of gene therapy.

A new study by Dana-Farber researchers shows aspirin therapy can extend the life of colorectal cancer patients whose tumors carry a mutation in a key gene, but has no effect on patients who lack the mutation.

Dana-Farber researchers identify a specific mutation that switches on Waldenström's Macroglobulinemia in one-third of patients, and a drug that targets the mutation — which could lead to better treatments for those patients.

Levi Garraway, MD, PhD, has been named as a recipient of the prestigious Paul Marks Prize for Cancer Research, which recognizes promising investigators aged 45 or younger who are advancing the field of cancer research.